Michael Foot dies

Pobby

Don`t for get we were also in the days of Thatcher fever. her who started off council house give aways. Appealed to the mentality challenged, in winning a war. Oh and gave GB a few ideas about letting off the brakes in lending.

smamst

kennyboy66 wrote: »

Got plenty wrong in his life in politics but much preferred politicians like him rather than the current shower.


Plus he wrote a lovely poem about Everton in 1935

"And so I watch with heart and temper cool
God's lesser breed of men at Liverpool"

He was Argyle through and through, a proper socialist gentleman.

kennyboy66_2

smamst wrote: »

He was Argyle through and through, a proper socialist gentleman.

Oh I know. I think Argyle gave him a shirt with '90' on it six years ago and made him an honourary player - an outside left, I would think.

Being a decent sort of chap, he obviously watched Everton when he worked briefly in the city in the mid 30's and his poem was published in The Daily Post on 8th March 1935.

When at Thy call my weary feet I turn
The gates of paradise are opened wide
At Goodison I know a man can learn
Rapture more rich than Anfield can provide. In Coulter's skill and Geldard's subtle speed
I see displayed in all its matchless bounty
The power of which the heavens decreed
The fall of Sunderland and Derby County.
The hands of Sagar, Dixie's priceless head
Made smooth the path to Wembley till that day
When Bolton came. Now hopes are fled
And all is sunk in bottomless dismay.
And so I watch with heart and temper cool
God's lesser breed of men at Liverpool.

A proper politician and a honest, decent human being.

RIP.

kennyboy66_2

[QUOTE=Generali;30497833

I always wondered why such a clever man put his name to such a disastrous document as the 1983 Labour Party Manifesto.

[/QUOTE]

It was a mix of the bonkers (exchange controls, repeal of union legislation, nationalisation, withdrawal from the EEC) but there is a fair bit of stuff that is now accepted by all major parties.

Generali

kennyboy66 wrote: »

...there is a fair bit of stuff that is now accepted by all major parties.

Can you think of any examples? I was 12 at the time of the election and only remember the mental stuff (unilateral disarmament at the height of the Cold War on top of the things you mention).

Sir_Humphrey

Generali wrote: »

Can you think of any examples? I was 12 at the time of the election and only remember the mental stuff (unilateral disarmament at the height of the Cold War on top of the things you mention).

Bank nationalisation for a start off, with state direction of lending. All the parties seem to want the state owned banks to lend more.

Unilateral disarmament was certainly not sensible in 1983, but it is lot more so now the Soviets are gone, and our national finances are stretched. Some people who are certainly not lefties think that it would be better to spend the money on conventional arms. Not quite what Foot thought, but not that far off.

Foot was also Eurosceptic and thought the EU was anti-democratic. Plenty of rightwingers have a similar view (which I disagree with)! The 1983 manifesto I believe had a promise to withdraw from the EU. Crazy indeed!

My parallel with Bill Deedes is based on the time I saw Deedes at the Oxford Union. He led a debate about Africa, in which his main contribution was to "introdush my old friend Ian Smith, even if you disagree with him, pleash let him shpeak". However, the floor of the Union stopped Ian Smith after he tried to claim that black Rhodesians were happy under his rule.

Now, I think that supporting Ian Smith is beyond the pale politically (FWIW I think the same about supporting Mugabe today). Even though Deedes had opinions which I find abhorrent, I do not feel animosity towards him. And that ought to be the same for right-wing people who find Foot's views abhorrent.

Sir_Humphrey

A quick Google Search found me the actual manifesto (which I confess I have never actually read).

http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1983/1983-labour-manifesto.shtml

Foreward

Here you can read Labour's plan to do the things crying out to be done in our country today.

To get Britain back to work. To rebuild our shattered industries. To get rid of the ever-growing dole queues. To protect and enlarge our National Health Service and our other great social services. To help stop the nuclear arms race. Here you can see what Labour is determined to do, and how we shall set about it.

But at once the objection is raised: Can we afford it? Where will the money come from? Are we not just making promises which cannot be fulfilled?

You will find the detailed answers here. But let us emphasise a few of them at once.

The first short, sharp answer is that what Britain cannot afford is the present policy of accepting mass unemployment.

Mass unemployment on the scale Mrs. Thatcher and her government have been prepared to tolerate - worse than we have ever known before and worse than any other industrial country has experienced - imposes a crushing burden on the whole community.

Of course it hits hardest the young denied work altogether, and their mothers and fathers thrown out of their jobs with little chance of getting another.

But it also hits the whole country.

Mass unemployment costs the country £15 billion, £16 billion, £17 billion a year, astronomic figures never conceived possible before, and they move higher still every month.

Mass unemployment is the main reason why most families in Britain, all but the very rich, are paying more in taxes today than they did four years ago when the Conservatives promised to cut them for everybody.

Mass unemployment is the main reason why we are wasting our precious North Sea oil riches. Since 1979 Mrs. Thatcher's government has had the benefit of £20 billion in tax revenues from the North Sea. It has all been swallowed by the huge, mounting cost of mass unemployment. And the oil won't last for ever, although, according to Mrs. Thatcher's economics, the unemployment will.

Our country, no civilised country, can afford the human waste, the industrial and economic waste, involved in these policies. We in the Labour Party reject them absolutely, and we describe in this Manifesto the real constructive alternative, and how we shall pay for it.

People complain about politicians giving a lack of detail. Well in 1983 it gave 700 pages of detail. Indeed a suicidal thing to do in politics!

BTW, FWIW, I prefer Healey to Foot politically.

kennyboy66_2

Generali wrote: »

Can you think of any examples? I was 12 at the time of the election and only remember the mental stuff (unilateral disarmament at the height of the Cold War on top of the things you mention).

Some examples;

Increase Health spending
Increase Education spending, reduce class sizes & ban corporal punishment
Develop comprehensive care for under 5's
Increase maternity rights and pay.
Increase foreign aid.
Minimum wage.
Lowering interest rates and weakening the pound.

The fact is though that the main themes (out of EU, nationalisation, repeal of union legislation, taxation and inflation policies) would almost certainly meant that these would not have acheiveable (to say the least).

Some of the stuff on controlling inflation reads like something from Cuba or Venezuela.

I was 17 at the time, and it mind boggling to think what it would have been like in the UK had that Labour party been elected. Perhaps more people would have emigrated to Oz!

kennyboy66_2

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Now, I think that supporting Ian Smith is beyond the pale politically (FWIW I think the same about supporting Mugabe today). Even though Deedes had opinions which I find abhorrent, I do not feel animosity towards him. And that ought to be the same for right-wing people who find Foot's views abhorrent.

Nicely put.

Generali

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

BTW, FWIW, I prefer Healey to Foot politically.

Wasn't it Healey that said, "I'll tax them [the rich] until the pips squeak"? I think he was Chancellor when the IMF were asked for help too. It's funny that at the time he was considered to be on the right of the Labour Party* whereas now he'd be on the very extreme left of British politics.

IIRC Healey was a war hero. Wasn't he IC on the beaches during the invasion of Italy?




*Again IIRC, the leadership election that ended with Foot becoming leader had a 'Dream Team' of Healey and Benn as Leader and Deputy representing right and left wings of the party being postulated by the press and BBC. The unions preferred Foot so he won.